In a tale of contrasting fortunes of country's two biggest IT companies, TCS on Thursday reported 38 per cent surge in profit exceeding market expectations on favourable rupee while Infosys's 33 per cent rise was way below estimates.

While TCS continued to maintain its optimism to outgrow the industry in the rest of the year, Infosys -- which has for the past two-three quarters struggled to beat its own guidance -- chose to scale down its FY2013 outlook saying the global macro environment is cloudy and challenging.

Investors' woes were compounded with the Bangalore- headquartered firm skipping a quarterly guidance (for July-September quarter) for the first time in its history.

Commenting on the divergence, IT research company Garnter said, "the results reaffirm the fact that company-specific issues continue to plague the performance of Infosys, while the underlying health of the market was confirmed by TCS earnings."

Infosys' weak numbers dragged down the stock market with BSE benchmark Sensex taking a hit of 257 points. Infosys shares slumped 8 per cent and the sentiment was so poor that the insipid Infosys earnings and outlook had a cascading effect on peer stocks, including TCS that feel 1.80 per cent.

Infosys MD and CEO S D Shibulal said in Bangalore, "We lost USD 13 million because of currency and we also took a one time write-off (of USD 15 million) in accrued revenue as a matter of prudence on a large transformational programme which got cancelled this quarter in Europe."

However, TCS Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director N Chandrasekaran was upbeat.

"We have seen strong, secular growth across all our service lines and industry segments driven by robust volumes from key markets like North America, Europe and the UK," he said in Mumbai.

TCS posted nearly 38 per cent jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 3,317.68 crore for the April-June period of this financial year. It revenue also surged by 37.71 per cent to Rs 14,868.71 crore in the quarter under review.

In comparison, Infosys today reported a 32.92 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 2,289 crore in first quarter. Its revenue was up 28.47 per cent to Rs 9,616 crore.

In dollar terms, TCS April-June revenues stood at USD 2,728 million, representing a quarter-on-quarter rise of 3.02 per cent. Infosys' revenues stood USD 1,752 million -- 1.1 per cent lower than USD 1,771 million reported in March quarter.

While TCS does not give revenue guidance, investors and analysts did not anticipate Infosys to revise its FY2013 revenue outlook to 5 per cent from 8-10 per cent given in April.

Nasscom has estimated 11-14 per cent growth for the industry in the same period.

"Infosys reported a disappointing Q1 FY13 but even bigger disappointment was on revenue growth guidance," said Viju K George, analyst, J P Morgan in a report.

While rupee depreciated in the April-June quarter, the results of TCS and Infosys show the currency impact has been different for the IT majors' margins.

TCS's Ebidta (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation) margins contracted 0.50 per cent 29 per cent from the previous quarter while Infosys' saw its margins decline a whopping 1.90 per cent sequentially.

"EBITDA margins declined for Infosys despite benefits from currency depreciation," said Kotak Institutional Equities.

On margins, Chandrasekaran said, "This is the quarter in which we give wage increases and we had also applied for a significant number of visas, the visa fees also went up.

Considering all that, we were able to mitigate any dip in operating margin and use currency gains in mitigating that."

On currency fluctuations, TCS lost Rs 93.75 crore on rupee volatility while Infosys lost around Rs 72.7 crore in this parameter.

Financial major Jefferies' equity analyst Vishal Agarwal, said Infosys' results disappointed, even as TCS delivered a better-than-expected quarter.